Now on View
From Art Colony to Connecticut Collection: Highlights from the Florence Griswold Museum
- Museum Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 10am to 5pm.
Since the Museum opened to the public in 1947, its focus has expanded from displaying paintings tied to the Lyme Art Colony based at Florence Griswold’s boardinghouse to presenting a broad array of media that encourages people to get up close and personal with the art of Connecticut. The selections on view in the Niblack Gallery range in date from the 18th to the 21st century, and include not only paintings but also prints, sculptures, and video. The current installation presents pieces from the permanent collection that reflect the Museum’s enduring attention to the Lyme Art Colony and Florence Griswold, the landscape, and Connecticut’s artistic heritage. Selected works illuminate the story of what is now the Museum’s grounds, land that was a site of enslavement when the Noyes family owned and lived in a house formerly on the property. A newly commissioned work by Felandus Thames considers the existence of those enslaved residents and the experience of African Americans in Connecticut, and is set in dialogue with works from the collection related to the Griswold house and property.
The Museum celebrates Connecticut’s rich and wide-ranging art over time with pieces that include idyllic mid-nineteenth century rural scenes, Impressionist landscapes, and modern views of labor and factories. Several artists help us consider humans’ relationship to the environment. Images by African American artists offer a view of their achievements as part of a more diverse picture of Connecticut’s art. Florence Griswold embraced both history and the contemporary art and artists of her time, inspiration the Museum honors today in expanding and exhibiting its permanent collection of Connecticut art.
This exhibition is made possible with the generous support of HSB, Department of Economic and Community Development, Connecticut Office of the Arts, as well as donors to the Exhibition Fund and the Annual Fund.
